Dealer Rating on Google
by Michael Midgley at 2009-12-11 17:37:49

I've been reading a lot lately on reputation management and I have a question for the community. If you type our dealership into Google and click reviews it states we are a 1/2 star, but if you read the reviews they are all positive. We have 11 reviews. 1 on Google Maps, 7 on DealerRater, and 2 on Edmunds. The Google review is a five star, if you click to DealerRater we are a 4.6 star. It looks like Google is scoring all of the DealerRater reviews as zeros. 5 stars divided by eleven reviews equals 1/2 star. How do we fix this?

by Brian Pasch at 2009-12-12 16:47:33

Michael, what is your dealership name and location so I can check this out.

by Michael Midgley at 2009-12-14 16:49:47

Brian, the dealership is Henry Day Ford in West Valley City, Utah. Thanks for looking into this for us.

by Brian Pasch at 2009-12-15 00:13:09

@michael
When I do a search I do not see that summary of a half star as you discussed. Since Google Maps has been rolling up reviews the math you mention may not be reliable. I would fix this problem by focusing on getting positive reviews added to Google Maps, 2 per week for the next month and see what happens. Make sure the reviews are done from the customers own home pc.

by James . at 2009-12-16 12:27:34

I agree with Brian. I've seen great success with dealers who use their owner marketing system to select a group of customers and include a suggestion for the customer to write a review on google in their next communication piece. In Orange County there was a dealer who sent out a thank you card to new customers soon after they took delivery of their vehicle with an offer for a free car wash if they posted a review. The important goal here is to have them do it from their own computer - do not have customers sit down in the dealership and write the review. Google will see that they all came from the same couple computers. Good luck!

by Merla Turner at 2009-12-16 13:47:04

Most review sites track IP addresses, which is why a customer’s home computer is the safest place for a review to come from.
I find that a humble request goes so far in gathering positive reviews - it's all about your relationship with customers – if you treated them like gold they will happy write about it. Additionally, new FTC guidelines make giving a customer anything in return for a positive review a little scary.
Check out this link: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm to read the FTC's testimonial guidelines. Happy review gathering!

by Michael Midgley at 2009-12-17 07:38:05

Thanks for answering that for me. I checked our Google maps page the other day and the 1/2 star review is gone. Here's a question: Who should we focus on? In other words, which rating source seems to have the most profound impact? You would think Google would get more traffic, then again the people searching DealerRater are looking for reviews. Is there a better one?

by Kim Orr at 2009-12-17 10:27:18

Hi Michael:
Addressing your question - which review sites/directories should dealers focus on gathering reviews at?

First, I would do a search of your dealership's name, go 10 pages deep or so, and see what's coming up. Sites where you may have less-than-positive reviews are critical to focus on - good ratings contextualize & push back/down bad ratings.

2) Because an engine like Google constantly changes which review sites it 'pushes up' in Google Local (ah, the mysteries of Google's 'mind'), it's important for dealers to try to generate positive reviews across many of the major customer review sites/directories. Here's some to put on your radar: Yelp, Citysearch, Merchant Circle, Insider Pages, Edmunds, Google Maps, Yahoo and Bing's version of Google local/maps, DealerRater, Judy's Book, Kudzu...

3) Another reason it's smart to populate reviews all across these major sites: every consumer uses the Internet differently, and values different sources: Yelpers are really passionate Yelpers, some consumers especially value information at Edmunds, etc. And you want to reach ALL your potential customers wherever they are searching and reading.

Yes, it's super time-consuming, but with 3 in 4 car shoppers now turning to online customer reviews, it's the smartest thing you can do for your dealership. (Our dealers getting aggressive with Online Reputation Management are generating hundreds of new, positive reviews across the Web, and it's directly driving 100-plus hyper-motivated (!) sales and service calls a month.) Good Luck!!